Aaron Connolly is expected to be out for Hull City’s Tuesday night home match against Birmingham City.
The former Brighton striker suffered a dead-leg against West Brom the previous weekend, so he was unable to play in Saturday’s goalless draw with Preston.
That was the most recent setback in a season in which he has only made 13 starts in 35 games and played just 48 minutes since January 12.
“The frustrating thing for me with Aaron was the dead leg because we arranged the game on Tuesday to sharpen up the bench players, to sharpen up the players who haven’t had many minutes on the pitch,” Tigers head coach Liam Rosenior said following the stalemate at Deepdale.
“I need all the players of the squad to be ready to come in and press and play at the level that that we expect now at the sharp end of the season, so Aaron missed that game and he needs to catch up on his fitness.
“For me, he needs to get sharper. It’s not his fault in terms of the way he’s training. He just hasn’t had a run of games at all. If you’re not fit and we’ve got a fully fit squad, you need to get fit, and that’s just the way it is. We’ll see, he’s working really hard and we’ll make that decision on Monday (if Connolly will feature on Tuesday).”
Adama Traore is also a doubt after missing out at Deepdale but striker Noah Ohio returned to the match-squad after missing out against Albion and Southampton.
Abdulkadir Omur was dropped to the bench against Preston. Rosenior said: “I had a conversation with Abdush during the week. He has adapted really well,.
“He’s fatigued because of his level, the games he played at Trabzon – he hasn’t played many games and he’s come in and he’s played two 60 minutes, he’s trained really, really hard and probably double the intensity that he’s used to in Turkey.
“We had a really good conversation. He said, ‘Gaffer, I’m feeling it’. So I said ‘No problem’. Regan [Slater] was already in my mind to start the game because I think here you need to assert control. That’s the thing, I’m really fortunate. One, I’ve got a good squad, and two, they’re pretty much all fit, so that’s the decisions I have to make game on game, but that bench could change again on Tuesday.”
Leave a Reply